


Love sought is good, but given unsought is better

by Jonezy



Category: Harlots (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-23
Updated: 2020-09-23
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:40:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26617600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jonezy/pseuds/Jonezy
Summary: When Charlotte wakes, she is gone.
Relationships: Isabella Fitzwilliam/Charlotte Wells
Comments: 2
Kudos: 37





	Love sought is good, but given unsought is better

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to the most plotless thing I have ever written! I just couldn't get this domestic diddy out of my head so.. It had to go somewhere. You're welcome!
> 
> Takes place after 2x06, before 2x07. 
> 
> Title from Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, Act III, scene i.

When Charlotte wakes, she is gone.

At first she wonders whether it was nothing more than a fever dream, whether the events of the past twenty four hours have deteriorated her mental state to that in which she must dream, explicitly, vividly, of being freed from her eggshell white cell in Golden Square.

Until she stretches. Until she feels it.

It begins at the very tips of her toes, snaking up and along her body in a honey warm glow: The feeling of satisfaction, each nerve ending singing as though it were a harpists string, played by the most deft and talented of fingers.

She grins, rocks her head to the pillow beside her and spies it: An indent, and a fine black hair. Mindlessly, Charlotte reaches for it, twirling it through her fingers like an infatuated girl.

So, it happened then. She's not going to have to worry as to how to maintain her ignorant facade when she is next holding court with Lady Isabella. She's not going to be unable to meet her gaze without thinking, without feeling...

Charlotte sits up.

She's rewarded for her efforts by a smell, unentangling itself from its resting place around her neck to dance under her nose. The sharp zest of orange and the gentleness of rose combined with a deeper undertone - the must of old, oak panelling. The smell of lavish state houses. The smell of money.

Charlotte shivers, heads for the hall. The house is surprisingly quiet, so she muses that it must be early.

She wonders about Isabella. She wonders what time she must have left, what she must have said - if anything at all. Will she have made it back before her absence was noted? Would He have even noticed? Would she be safe? Would she make excuses? What excuses? A ball? A dinner? More dice?

Burrowing deeper into her shawl, she heads for the kitchen. Tea. Serenity. Perhaps a wash. Perhaps not, if that smell is going to remain upon her.

It's not until her feet are on the very last stair that she hears it. Fanny, chattering away to somebody.

Somebody with a soft, haughty voice. Somebody whose syllables are accentuated. Somebody whose very presence emanates the upper echelons of life.

Charlotte rounds the corner at speed and then stops as though she has set eyes on the Holy Spirit himself.

In front of her, Lady Isabella is sat at their dining table with baby Kitty burbling away happily on her lap. There is a cup of tea, still steaming in front of her. Her hair is loose, mussed, and yet still holding its shape as though it has simply been styled that way. Her clothes are loose, and her face is bare of the previous nights cosmetics.

Upon spotting Charlotte, her eyebrows lift and she smiles, a smile that reflects in her eyes, twinkling warmth and affection.

Fanny shatters the moment. "Oh!" She all but shrieks. "Morning Charlotte! There's tea in the pot, d'you want one?"

"Er, yeah." Charlotte responds, barely able to take her eyes off of the domesticated scene unfolding in front of her eyes. "Please."

"Her Ladyship has been so good with Kitty! I'm so grateful." 

"Please." Isabella placates, bouncing her knee so that Kitty gurgles out something resembling a giggle. "It is less of a task and more of a pleasure."

Charlotte takes a seat beside her. "You didn't wake me. I thought you'd fled."

"No. Never." Isabella affirms, face alight in concern. "You looked so peaceful. I couldn't bring myself to disturb you."

"There ya go" Fanny announces, sloshing the mug down in front of Charlotte. "Tea." She looks between them both. Neither look at her. "I'll just go and er, empty the washpot if you're ok to watch her a second more, your Ladyship."

"Yes" Isabella says, turning briefly to her with a smile. "We'll be right here."

"Great!" Fanny stares at the side of Charlotte's head in desperation for an explanation. Upon realising nothing will be coming, she retreats until it's the two of them, a gaggling Kitty and the sounds of a gradually stirring London street.

"She reminds you of your own." Charlotte presses, gently, from a place of curiosity.

"Yes." Isabella smiles. "I never had this time. I never had any time."

Charlotte reaches out her finger, smiling when one of Kitty's podgy hands wraps around it in response.

"I would like to ride with you. To see your daughter. If that would be acceptable with you."

Visibly moved, Isabella stutters "Of course. Yes. I would like that so very much."

A moment of quiet passes between them, broken only by Kitty's infantile noises.

"It's too quiet." Charlotte sighs, brows furrowing.

"I rather thought the same." Isabella agrees. "I fancy that must mean that you have things to take care of."

"I'm afraid it is like to be the truth."

"If there is anything you require from me, I hope you know that you already have it."

"There is nothing." Charlotte says, shifting forward and enclosing her free hand around Isabella's cheek. "I could be struck down by the spirits today and perish happily knowing that last night was not just a fancy of my imagination."

Shifting Kitty in her lap, Isabella moves in a way that means one hand securely wraps around Kitty's stomach, holding her in place whilst the other reaches for Charlotte's. Isabella's fingers grasp hers, and she pulls their entwined hands to her mouth, placing the most chaste of kisses upon Charlotte's knuckles.

"Charlotte Wells" She murmurs, looking at Charlotte over the ridge of her knuckles "You have cured me of the poison that was rotting me away. I am afraid that makes me irrevocably yours. Your spirit is too free, too rambunctious and too young and too wild I know for me to ever ask you to contain it, but I must ask just one thing from you."

"Name it."

"Whatever it is you must do. Always come back to me."

"I will" Charlotte promises, releasing her hand to once again grasp Isabella's cheek and this time, pulling her lips toward her own, kissing her with abandon. She kisses her without thought, without consequence, thinking not of what her Mother would say, her Father, or her sister. She kisses her without care for the demons that have left scars upon both of their skins. She kisses her to silence the anxieties of the unknown. "I swear it."

//


End file.
